Noted: As traditional pay-TV companies seek out new methods of selling TV to consumers, Dish Network made it clear Monday that it won’t tolerate modern-day piracy.

In a lawsuit filed in New York, the Douglas County satellite TV provider told HTV International Limited to stop illegally streaming “entire channels of TVB and CCTV television programming” to users who bought the $300 h.TV boxes in the United States.

Viewers can stream the content by going through peer-to-peer networks, which Dish called a pirate broadcast network.

TVB, the world’s largest producer of Cantonese-language TV programming, works with Dish to offer Dish customers the channel.

Sling rolls out feature to let one account share its TV subscription with 3 devices — for an extra $20/month. Click image to view PDF on differences.

Sling TV on Wednesday added one of the most requested features for its online TV service: Sharing. Technically, the new service gives subscribers the ability for one account to stream shows to three devices.

But the Douglas County-based service said that adding the multi-streams feature comes at a higher price — an extra $20 a month.

The new subscription, which can be ordered independently of its basic Sling plan, does offer exclusive channels including Nat Geo, truTV, UniMas, Univision and some Fox channels like FX and the local content in some areas.

But ESPN, one of the biggest draws of Sling, is not included. Neither is The Disney Channel. (See other channel differences between the plans on this PDF.)

Existing Sling subscribers, who currently pay $20 a month for around 25 channels, also must pay an extra $20 a month to access the new channels and multi-stream feature. Customers can also switch to a multi-stream subscription if funds are limited. Read more…

Noted: Sling TV, the online TV service from Dish Network, had a record-breaking run during the NCAA’s March Madness basketball games. But not only was Monday’s final game the most watched event for the startup TV service, the Douglas County company said that on Saturday, April 2, it had the most customer sign ups in a single day.

On that same day, the four remaining college basketball teams went head to head. But to watch the game, viewers needed access to pay-TV channel TBS, which for the first time broadcast the live finals.

That left fans who had stopped paying for cable or satellite TV service scrambling. Viewers had to sign up for cable again or borrow a friend’s login information. Or they could use the March Madness app and watch it on a phone or tablet. Or, as many sites suggested, sign up for one of the newer Internet-based TV services like Sling, at $20/month, or PlayStation Vue, which recently launched in Denver and starts at $30 a month. Both offer a free trial and a cancel-anytime policy.

The company still won’t share how many online subscribers it has. Or how many customers canceled after the final game.

“In March, we also saw our most monthly sign ups ever, by a large margin,” a Sling TV spokesperson shared with The Denver Post. “The record-breaking data from March shows that consumers are looking to Sling TV for their live and on-demand entertainment needs.”

Comments Off on Final Four gave Sling TV best day ever for new subscribers

Sling TV says the 2016 NCAA finals was the most watched event in the online-streaming service’s 14-month history.

Viewers tuned into Monday’s college basketball finals by the droves on pay-TV channel TBS. But for those without a cable subscription, many must have turned to Sling TV, the live-streaming TV service based in Douglas County.

Sling TV reported Tuesday that the NCAA match between the Villanova Wildcats and the North Carolina Tar Heels was the most watched event ever in the young company’s 14-month history.

“While brackets were busting all month long across America, we continued to see record numbers of basketball fans flock to Sling TV. So many of you joined us on this journey that last night’s game became the most-watched event in Sling TV history (previously held by this year’s College Football Playoffs), incredible,” Sling announced on its blog. Read more…

But neither does Sling TV’s service from Douglas County’s Dish Network.

On their entry-level packs, both offer ESPN, ESPN 2, AMC, Food Network, HGTV, Disney Channel, TBS, CNN and Cartoon Network. With some add-ons, Sling can look a lot more like Vue but there are whole sets of channels Sling doesn’t offer — mainly Viacom channels like Comedy Central and MTV.

Since inception, the year-old Sling has been more about the basic cable channels most people watch. Vue appeared to be more about offering a channel-heavy package that competed with cable TV service. Vue’s lowest plan at its launch was about $50 a month for 50 channels.

But just a bit more popular is The Blaze TV, the online channel of conservative radio and TV host Glenn Beck. It is ranked No. 9. (see the top 10 chart below) in a report by Parks Associates, a market research firm.

“The Blaze has been around for several years, giving it ample time to build up a following,” Sappington said. “In addition, The Blaze caters to a niche audience, which allows them to focus their video service offering and promotion on their target market.” Read more…

Even with its launch into a new way to watch TV this year, Dish Network reported Monday that its total number of pay-TV subscribers dropped during the third quarter, compared to a year earlier.

The Douglas County satellite TV service provider ended September with 13.909 million pay-TV subscribers. A year ago, it had 14.041 million.

Dish pay-TV subscribers continues to drop in its 3rd quarter 2015, just like most traditional pay-TV companies.

The number includes new customers from Sling TV, the live-TV streaming service Dish launched earlier this year. The novel service strips away the old rules of pay TV by charging a standard $20 a month with a simple sign up, no long-term contract and no cancellation fees. Read more…

Comments Off on Dish Network total subscribers declines, even with Sling TV

Dish Network’s big gamble on offering live TV in an online-only service began showing signs of paying off during the Douglas County company’s recent quarter. Pay-TV subscribers grew about 88,000 in the second quarter, ended June 30, compared to the first quarter of this year.

But growth of its Sling TV service wasn’t enough to offset the year-to-year decline in subscriber numbers. Dish reported a drop of 121,000 customers in the past 12 months. While Dish reported that Sling TV attracted 169,000 paying customers as of March 31, the company said it will no longer separate Sling from its traditional satellite TV customer base. Dish ended the June quarter with 13,932,000 subscribers, down from 14,053,000 a year ago.

“The linear TV business is mature and is now declining. It’s been declining since 2012,” Dish founder and CEO Charlie Ergen said during a Wednesday conference call. “…OTT (Over The Top, or its Sling online-video service) is growing. You have a point that there’s certainly more losses on the linear side than 80,000, but we haven’t broken that out because that’s not how we look at it.”

Analysts on the call tried to get officials to pinpoint the current Sling subscriber number (“300,000?” asked one), but Ergen said that the point is Dish is a TV business and it is pushing the lower-priced Sling TV service to customers who want a better deal on TV service. He did suggest that analysts triangulate the Sling number by using SAC costs, or the Subscriber Acquisition Cost, which is the cost of getting a new subscriber. On June 30, Dish’s SAC was $714. A year ago, it was $854. Read more…

Comments Off on Sling TV had 169,000 customers in March but Dish wants you to guess what it is today

Too many add ons from the cable company? Sling TV feels your pain — and created a TV commercial about it.

The scrappy Sling TV isn’t going to let it slide that Comcast-owned NBCUniversal has blocked its new commercials poking fun at traditional pay-TV services.

Roger Lynch, Sling’s CEO, wrote publicly today that NBC blocked the ads from airing on its stations in San Diego, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. Lynch notes that these particular stations are owned and operated by NBC. Several other independent NBC stations that are not owned by Comcast continue to run the ads, as do some ABC, CBS and Fox stations.

“Here’s the irony. The refusal to air our campaign endorses the ads’ central truth: there are traditional pay-TV players that just don’t get it,” Lynch wrote. Read more…

Comments Off on NBC tells Sling TV to take that, blocks Sling’s ‘Take Back TV’ ads in 3 cities

ESPN via the Internet looks the same as ESPN on TV. Sports channel is available for Sling TV.

In this wild west of new online pay-TV services, consumers have the luxury to try a new service and then cancel it — no penalties, extra payments or any commitment. And apparently, they are doing this in droves, according to a new report out by Parks Associates.

Based on a survey of 10,000 U.S. broadband customers between April to June this year, Parks Associates found that 60 percent who paid for one of 75 online TV streaming services have canceled a service in the past 12 months.

During April to June this year, the research company surveyed 10,000 consumers who are also U.S. broadband Internet customers about which over-the-top services they have canceled in the past 12 months. This excluded free trials.

Netflix held up pretty well — only 4 percent of those surveyed had canceled Netflix. Parks extrapolated that to be about 9 percent of Netflix’s current subscriber base.

Another 7 percent canceled Hulu Plus, which doesn’t sound too bad until you learn that 7 percent of those surveyed represents “approximately one-half of Hulu Plus’s current subscriber base,” according to Parks. Hulu Plus also features a lot of network and cable TV shows that are seasonal, allowing fans to subscribe for just part of the year. Read more…

Tamara Chuang covers personal technology and local tech news for The Denver Post. She previously spent 10 years doing the same thing for The Orange County Register before taking a hiatus to move here and become a SAHM to a precocious toddler.